H1B Visa Petitions to be Submitted Electronically

USCIS may make the H1B visa lottery more criteria driven and less random

Going for all the US H1B visa petitions must be applied online. Companies sponsoring H1B visa applicants will not have to pre-register online for the H1B visa lottery. Read on to find out more.

There are good news and bad news for companies sponsoring H1B applicants. For the next year’s submissions, companies will have to pre-register electronically and then file petitions for the annual H1B visa lottery.

The H1B visa program awards a total of 65,000 visas each year along with an additional 20,000 visas under the master’s cap. These visas are currently granted through a random lottery.

In 2018-19 about 1.9 lakh migrants applied for a visa under the H1B visa program. About 60% of these applications were submitted by Indians. Some of the top hirers are TCS, Cognizant, Wipro and Infosys.

Online Submission of H1B Visa Petitions – The Pros and Cons

The Positives

Documentation for the H1B visa application is exhaustive. Employers who place employees on an H1B visa at client sites face a lot of extra paperwork when filing this petition. Having to pre-register online will help the sponsoring companies save on a lot of administrative costs. This change has been approved by the US Office of Management and Budget.

The Negatives

Many applicants and sponsoring companies to feel that this move will give the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) more power over deciding which applications to approve and which to deny. They feel that the implementation of this new program along with the submission of information required in the Labor Certification Form may make the H1B visa lottery system a criteria-driven process instead of a random lottery.